Warning – RANT: I hate LinkedIn
NOTE: I just deleted a tonne of contacts on LinkedIn – if one of ’em is you, yell at me. I probably did it by mistake. I was trying to get rid of nasty recruitment spammers. I’m down from over 100 to just 55. And more to delete…. I should really sit back and polish…
NOTE: I just deleted a tonne of contacts on LinkedIn – if one of ’em is you, yell at me. I probably did it by mistake. I was trying to get rid of nasty recruitment spammers. I’m down from over 100 to just 55. And more to delete….
I should really sit back and polish this whine, presenting it as some sort of pseudo- research-ethnographic – profound -unbiased report on the social network, LinkedIn. Sod that! It’s my blog 😛 and I wanna have a bitchfest. (Feel free to join me).
Reasons why I hate LinkedIn:
- I paid for full membership. Didn’t use it. Dropped membership. Now when I try to do something I consider ‘basic’ it says ‘premium’. Barrier to entry all wrong.
- I made the mistake early on of signing up anyone and everyone from my previous companies (Cisco in Asia and UUNET/MCI WorldCom in Europe/Middle East). Big mistake, those companies have about 100,000 employees. My error. Or wasn’t clearly defined.
- Don’t bother contacting me if you have Sales Director or Recruitment Consultant in your title. Real life friends, who are groovy and web 2.0 savvy, like Natalie from Xpand, excepted. I didn’t join LinkedIn so you could whore your lousy jobs and revolting products/services to me. And I don’t care how well I “fit” your target demographic. You just don’t get what social networks are about, do you?
- I hate the way normally sane, nice, friends see LinkedIn as an excuse to deal with me differently. Put on a “professional” hat and it’s suddenly ok to inflict me, your bestest best friend, with your jobs/products junk mail? Why do I get treated as a number as soon as I am on a “professional” network? Let’s meet on Facebook – I’ll check out your ‘posted items’ and ‘classifieds’ if they are relevant.
- clunky interface. ’nuff said. oh and icky colours.
- “Your network” supposedly giving me stats and graphs on my network is less than useful. Or at least, I can’t figure it out. You might be able to.
I could go on and on – but I figure you guys have some gripes you’d like to share too. Or do you like LinkedIn? I wrote this blog post then went looking for a “I hate linkedin” picture. Found the one at top on Coding Horror’s Opting out of LinkedIn. Which I intend reading as soon as I hit the Publish Post button. *lays a smackdown on the Publish Post button*
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I’m very careful what I do with the information I have been allowed to glean about people from social networks. To me its a form or trust. I;m also very careful who I link to. Have been from day one. Guess I have this privacy thing going, no I don’t think you can guess that, but I do.
LinkedIn is n worst than the others, Its just how you use it. How you approach it. Its like Facebook, aspects of Facebook for me would make a great rant. But I just use it my way. That maynot be the intended way.
I just don’t have this experience with LinkedIn. My level of connectedness is ostensibly similar to yours and I just don’t get the recruitment spam – maybe two so far this year.
Maybe I have my profile set up all wrong – keywords, skills, etc. You must have the right recruiter spam mojo in yours.
I have to agree with you about the interface- I really really hate it. I don’t enjoy using it. The information design is confusing and just feels like words everywhere.
No spammy mail yet tho.
Well I think the spammy email might’ve been my own fault.
You see, I joined in early 2004. I didn’t have many friends *cries* so I signed up anyone and everyone who asked me. Yes, I was a LinkedIn floozy.
So yesterday when I got to 102 members, I deleted 52. And because I can do math, and you can’t, that means I had exactly 50 left. I messaged a few people, blogged a bit, Facebooked my LinkedIn action and now I am back up to 101 members. But they are MUCH better quality friends – not nasty recruitment spammers – real people I have met and you know, know.
@Jasmin, but you are right the interface still sucks.
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best new site for anti-LinkedIn folks is BizGravity http://www.bizgravity.com. A free site where folks can actual auction off their time to meet!!!
Hi Laurel, good article. I also got tired of LinkedIn inability to connect people influence for serious business, plus the spam was giving me the S&%Ts… I would appreciate your thoughts on a new startup http://www.8Contacts.com its like LinkedIn but connects people directly and without the social media aspect. Thanks